140 LAURENCE STERNE
the serious and the laughter of the light-hearted—-all
which he bore with excellent tranquillity. His character
was, — he loved a jest in his heart — and as he saw
himself in the true point of ridicule, he would say he
could not be angry with others for seeing him in a light
in which he so strongly saw himself; so that to his
friends, who knew his foible was not the love of money,
and who therefore made the less scruple in bantering
the extravagance of his humour, instead of giving the
true cause he chose rather to join in the laugh against
himself; and as he never carried one single ounce of
flesh upon his own bones, being altogether as spare
a figure as his beast he would sometimes insist upon
it that the horse was as good as the rider deserved;
that they were, centaur-like, both of a piece* At other
times, and in other moods, when his spirits were above
the temptation of false wit, he would say he found him-
self going off fast in a consumption; and, with great
gravity, would pretend he could not bear the sight of
a fat horse without a dejection of heart, and a sensible
alteration in his pulse; and that he had made choice
of the lean one he rode upon, not only to keep himself
in countenance, but in spirits,
At different times he would give fifty humorous and
apposite reasons for riding a meek-spirited jade of a
broken-winded horse, preferably to one of mettle; for
on such a one he could sit mechanically, and meditate
as delightfully de vanitate mundi et fuga saeadi, as with
the advantage of a death's-head before him; that, in
all other exercitations, he could spend his time, as he
rode slowly along, to as much account as in his study;